1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is concerned with new protective coatings (primer layer, first protective coating, and optional second protective coating) for use in the manufacture of microelectronic devices such as those used in microelectromechanical systems (MEMS).
2. Description of the Prior Art
Etchants used for deep etching may vary depending upon the etch selectivity requirements for the devices to be fabricated. Basic etchants may contain amines such as ethylene diamine, ethanolamine, and/or water-miscible lower alcohols such as isopropanol to modulate the etching behavior of the solution. Bulk silicon etching is typically performed at temperatures in the range of 40° to 120° C. and most typically at 60° to 90° C. The etching times range from 1 to 24 hours and most typically are in the range of 5 to 15 hours.
Acidic etchants include aqueous solutions of hydrofluoric acid (HF), including concentrated (49% to 50%) HF, aqueous dilutions of the same, and buffered oxide etchants comprising aqueous mixtures of HF and ammonium fluoride. HF etchants are used primarily for etching silicon dioxide. Mixed acid etchants typically comprise mixtures of 70% nitric acid (HNO3), 49% HF, and a diluent acid (e.g., 85% phosphoric acid (H3PO4) or 100% acetic acid) and are used primarily for bulk silicon etching. Common component ratios by volume for the mixtures are, for example,                HNO3/HF/H3PO4=7:1:7 or 3:1:4.Etching times for bulk silicon in these acid mixtures are typically in the range of 5 to 30 minutes and in some cases as long as 120 minutes at room temperature.        
It is common in silicon etching processes to utilize a thin (100- to 300-nm) silicon nitride or silicon dioxide coating on the silicon substrate as a mask for patterned etching or as a passivating layer to enclose active circuitry. Therefore, the protective coating system described here is commonly applied onto Si3N4 or SiO2, which means good adhesion to these substrates is critical for obtaining acceptable protection.
In the prior art, etch protective coatings or masks for MEMS fabrication processes have been selected primarily by using a trial-and-error method because there are no general-purpose protective coatings on the market. The etch selectivity of the etchants to various materials is often used as a guide for MEMS process engineers. With a much lower etch rate than silicon, films of silicon nitride have been used as a protective layer or hardmask during KOH or TMAH bulk silicon etching. Silicon dioxide has a higher etch rate than silicon nitride. Therefore, it is only used as a protective/mask layer for very short etches. Gold (Au), chromium (Cr), and boron (B) have also been reportedly used in some situations. Non-patterned hard-baked photoresists have been used as masks, but they are readily etched in alkaline solutions. Polymethyl methacrylate was also evaluated as an etch mask for KOH. However, because of saponification of the ester group, the masking time of this polymer was found to decrease sharply from 165 minutes at 60° C. to 15 minutes at 90° C. Black wax (Apiezon® W, available from Scientific Instrument Services, Inc., New Jersey) was also used as a protective coating in a 30% by weight KOH etch process (70° C.). After wet etching, the wax was removed using trichloroethylene.
Organic polymers are ideal candidates for protective coatings. The IC and MEMS industries have been using polymeric coating materials as photoresists, anti-reflective coatings, and planarization layers for many years. These materials are conveniently applied as thin films by the spin-on method and then balked or UV-cured to achieve the final coating form. One important requirement for the polymer is that it be highly soluble at room temperature in an environmentally friendly solvent. Because of the lack of a proper solvent, semicrystalline polyolefins such as polypropylene and polyethylene, as well as semicrystalline fluoropolymers such as Teflon®, which are known to have excellent corrosion resistance to strong acids and strong bases, cannot be formulated into spin-coated compositions for protective coating applications. At the same time, many common thermoplastic polymers such as polystyrene, poly(cyclic olefins), polymethyl methacrylate, polydimethylsiloxanes, polyimides, polysulfones, and various photoresist polymers (e.g., polyhydroxystyrene and novolac resins) fail to survive many common, harsh deep-etching processes because of their susceptibility and permeability to the etchants, poor adhesion to the substrate, tendency to form coating defects, or lack of solubility in solvents accepted in the microelectronics industry.